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Crime briefs: Known dealer busted with meth and a gun

Ryan Summerlin
rsummerlin@postindependent.com

Two Rivers Drug Enforcement Team reported arresting a major drug dealer May 19 in a sting operation that came frighteningly close to violence.

A TRIDENT task force officer was using an undercover Facebook profile when a woman known to law enforcement offered to sell the officer methamphetamine and heroin.

TRIDENT was aware that this woman was dating 32-year-old Saul Munoz, described in a police report as a known methamphetamine and heroin dealer.



They arranged to meet in West Glenwood, and the woman later contacted undercover officers again, offering to throw a 9mm handgun into the deal. While undercover officers were on their way, Munoz called saying they had taken too long, and the pair left.

The officer attempted to call him back. When Munoz finally called back he said, “You might have to take this (expletive) with you. I’m going to blow her head off,” according to an affidavit.



Officers followed the vehicle to New Castle, and Munoz called again, saying they could meet there for the deal. But when the undercover officer walked up to the car, Munoz said, “You’re TRIDENT” and “I don’t trust you” and drove away, according to the police report. They were later stopped by authorities for not driving in a single lane.

Munoz was directed to get out of the vehicle. The woman, still in Munoz’s green Chevrolet Avalanche, was distraught. Munoz, she said, had pointed a pistol at her while they were driving. She later said that he had threatened to kill her several times that day.

She pointed out where her boyfriend had stuffed a stolen .45 caliber Glock under the passenger seat, along with a plastic bag containing about 23 grams of suspected methamphetamine. The officer also found another pistol containing a loaded clip.

Munoz was also convicted of felony assault in 2014, and he had a protection order barring him from having a firearm, according to TRIDENT. His driver’s license was suspended for nonpayment of child support.

The most serious of his numerous arrest charges was possession of meth and a firearm, a class 1 drug felony that’s classified as a special offense. Additionally, he was arrested on charges including possession with intent to distribute, attempted distribution, possession of methamphetamine, all drug felonies, felony menacing and two counts of felony possession of a firearm. Domestic violence was applied as a sentence enhancer.

The woman has not been arrested.

Hallucinating husband chokes wife

A Parachute police officer was dispatched to Colorado Avenue for a domestic incident in progress Sunday evening.

A 19-year-old woman reported that her husband had grabbed her by the neck the previous night. While calling for police she had locked herself in her car with her children, and her husband was punching the window and throwing things.

“She believed he was possibly under the influence of drugs due to him seeing and hearing things,” according to an arrest report.

When police arrived, he said that he “just wanted to get his kids out of the vehicle.” He denied what his wife had reported to police. Asked about what had happened the previous night, he started to walk off, but the office detained him in handcuffs while he questioned the woman.

She told the officer that the man woke her the night before with “his hands around her throat strangulating her.”

She told police that her husband stayed up all night the night before and watched her sleep. “She told me that today he was hearing voices and seeing things that were not real along with being easily agitated,” the officer reported.

The husband was arrested on charges of second-degree assault by strangulation, a felony, and domestic violence was included as a sentence enhancer.

Felony burglary for $11.73

A young man was arrested on felony burglary charges after Rifle police say he attempted to steal $11.73 worth of products from Wal-Mart.

Rifle police were dispatched Sunday evening to Wal-Mart, where the store’s security had apprehended a 22-year-old suspected of shoplifting.

The store’s asset protection specialist started following the young man in the store because he was wearing “an unusually bigger coat.” She reported seeing him conceal two drinks and a toothbrush and toothpaste pack.

She also spotted him use lotion in an aisle and leave the bottle.

When police arrived, she had him in custody. The 22-year-old “uttered that he was thirsty and really needed a toothbrush,” an officer wrote in his report. The young man told officers that he didn’t have any money, and that he intended to take these items without paying because he needed them, according to an affidavit.

Wal-Mart’s computer system had records of him stealing from stores in Arizona in 2012, and in Missouri in November. In the later case he was issued a trespass order, barring him from returning to any Wal-Mart.

Searching him, officers found a bag containing a broken glass pipe containing residue that later tested positive for methamphetamine.

He was arrested on charges of second-degree burglary, a felony, possession of a controlled substance, a drug felony, and petty offense theft.

Valley View patient arrested

Glenwood Springs police May 19 responded to reports of an assault at Valley View Hospital.

Two security officers reported that a 26-year-old had struck and scratched them both while they were trying to escort her back to her room.

The patient had been brought in the previous night after having made some suicidal statements, according to a police report. She was attempting to leave her hospital room in her underwear, and security was trying to get her back into her room “so that she would not expose herself to other hospital staff or patients,” according to an affidavit. When she refused, a security guard tried to put her in “a straight arm bar hold,” and she then swung at both the guards. She hit one in the face and scratched the other.

When Glenwood Springs police arrived she denied having assaulted the security officers, saying that “she was just trying to not be controlled by security officers,” according to an affidavit.

She said that “if they don’t know what they’re doing and they get hurt, that is their fault,” according to a police report. She was uncooperative, and officers then forced her into handcuffs and took her to jail after she had been cleared by medical staff for release.

She was arrested on two felony counts of second-degree assault on an emergency medical care provider, along with misdemeanor resisting arrest and misdemeanor harassment.


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